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4.36 pm
Ross Cranston (Dudley, North) (Lab): I have great sympathy with the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning). I had Question 6 to the Prime Minister yesterday, and I was not called, and if the House will indulge me further in terms of time, I simply point out that Government Back Benchers have a much more difficult task in catching Mr. Speaker's eye because of our numbers.
I want to raise the issue of how preserving people's security can give rise to a tension with maintaining our democratic liberties. Unfortunately, debate on this issue in this House, the other place and outside is often bedevilled by the failure of many of those claiming to protect our liberties to acknowledge the concerns of ordinary people, from antisocial behaviour to terrorist threats. They use a traditional stylised analysis that fails to connect with such concerns. That is sometimes coupled with claims to a moral rectitude, which frankly sticks in my craw. I claim no monopoly of concern, conscience or wisdom in the remarks that I am about to make.
I take as an example the concern about terrorism of the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway). I acknowledge at the outset that there is a real danger that our response to terrorism may undermine the very democratic values that we seek to uphold. As my noble Friend the Attorney-General said in a thoughtful speech last night to the Bar parliamentary group, our response cannot be simply a utilitarian calculation, weighing the rights of security of the many against the legal rights of the few. That would ignore the values on which our democratic society is built. We must approach the issue as a matter of moral principle, not simply as a matter of pure self-interest.
That is why on various occasions, including previous recess debates, I have raised my concerns about Guantanamo bay, which is an American own goal. The detentions there impose grave harm on the detainees when, in the absence of proper judicial scrutiny, we can only speculate whether it is for the benefit of the American people or of people elsewhere, such as the United Kingdom.
We face, of course, a serious terrorist threat—its seriousness is underlined by the arrests earlier this week. Al-Qaeda and its sympathisers are of a completely different character from terrorists in the past. They are a global, messianic movement and they are not concerned about destroying innocent lives in the pursuit of their unachievable goal of overthrowing western civilisation.
How should we respond? We must respond in accordance with law, mindful that, as Lord Hoffmann said in the Rehman case,
- "in matters of national security the cost of failure can be high".
In the main, we have met the terrorist threat in a traditional way, in accordance with law and our principles of civil liberties and human rights. The one exception is part 4 of the 2001 Act, which allows for the detention of foreign nationals certified by the Home Secretary as a risk to national security and as suspected terrorists. Such foreign nationals cannot be deported because we cannot guarantee their human rights, so they can be detained indefinitely under the 2001 Act.
Without further measures, that power of detention would be unacceptable and the report by Lord Newton of Braintree and other Privy Councillors that those provisions should be repealed would be compelling. However, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which is a court of record with the right to appeal to the Court of Appeal, regularly reviews the detention of persons under part 4. SIAC may use intelligence information that is not available to the defendant, but that is seen by special advocates appointed to act on behalf of detainees. It is a further point in support of our independent Bar—I declare an interest at this point—that those advocates are of the highest competence and integrity.
Examples such as last year's Ajouaou case show the thoroughness with which SIAC approaches such matters. More recently the case of M, which was upheld by the Court of Appeal, shows that SIAC is no pushover. Frankly, the alternatives advanced in the Privy Councillors' report such as surveillance and tagging will not work with the most determined terrorists. Moreover, there could well be a temptation towards a greater intrusion on to civil liberties by use of such alternatives against a range of people, including those with only a tangential connection with wrongdoing. By contrast, the Home Secretary has certified only 17 people.
Lord Woolf's judgment in the M case, which I have mentioned, is a balanced appreciation of the problem, and an acceptance that the legislation gets it right. His judgment, and the recent remarks by the eminent legal scholar Professor Ronald Dworkin, fortify me in my support for the Government on this issue when we went into the Lobby on 25 February.
I was pleased that one aspect of the problem is raised in the White Paper, "One Step Ahead: A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organised Criminals", which the Home Secretary published earlier this week. The White Paper mentions review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which prevents the use of intercepted material in court proceedings, and I am glad that it is being reviewed.
I shall return to the enforcement of the Terrorism Act 2000. Earlier this year, the Home Secretary told me in a written answer that of the 530 people arrested under the 2000 Act, about half were released without charge. When my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) asked a similar question, she was told that no record is kept of how many of those people are Muslims. There is disquiet in the Muslim community about the use of the 2000 Act, however justified the 2000 Act may be—it is comparable to the feeling among the Irish community a quarter of a century ago. We must reassure the Muslim community that there is no persecution, and we must also assuage any Islamophobia in the general population.
Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister praised Iqbal Sacranie for his remarks on those issues. This week, I have spoken several times to Khurshid Ahmed, the chair of the National Association of British Pakistanis and a member of the Commission for Racial Equality, who echoed Mr. Sacranie's views that terrorism should be utterly condemned as being contrary to Islam and that those in the Muslim community who suspect terrorism must report it. Mr. Ahmed also made the valid point that we must address the disillusion among young Muslim men that can tempt them down the terrorist path. One cause of that is the considerable underachievement of Muslim young people in education.
We have only just had the Third Reading of the Higher Education Bill. I do not want to go over that ground again, but having failed to catch the Speaker's eye on Second Reading on 27 January, I want to say three things about the role of universities that were neglected in the debate.
First, universities are engaged in the search for truth. That is a justification for academic freedom, since the search for truth can sometimes rub up against vested interests or the powers that be. The search for truth is often conducted at a theoretical level—a level of generality—that does not have an immediate application to everyday life. The search for truth leads to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world, and that can function to transmit through the generations a common culture and civilisation.
Secondly, universities educate. Their role is in educating students to live life to the full through the acquisition of skills and through fostering imagination and creativity. All those who are able to benefit from a university education should have an equal opportunity to do so, because it involves not only personal fulfilment, but potential gain. Confucius said that it was not easy
- "to find someone who had studied for three years without aiming at pay".
I spent a great deal of my adult career in universities. In the 1980s and 1990s, I saw how they suffered very much from a real reduction in funding as the staff-
student ratio went up. George Walden, the former Member for Buckingham, described it as "mass cultivation on the cheap". The Government have put in additional money since 1997, but I saw the Higher Education Bill as the only way forward in terms of providing further financial support for universities, and I had no compunction about supporting it.These recess Adjournment debates are invaluable not only in providing an opportunity for Members to put specific points, but in allowing us to raise more general issues, as I have. I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and other hon. Members a productive and restful recess.
4.47 pm
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood) (Con): I have often thought that the questions which we were unable to ask and the speeches that we never had a chance to deliver were probably the best ones. Today's debate has proved it to me, because there have been excellent contributions all round. Alternatively, perhaps it is because as it is not Government business and there is no Whip, Members can use their intellect and display their true integrity.
I want to speak in support of some of the speeches. The contribution by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Llew Smith) was admirable in every respect, particularly his allegation to the effect that Lord Richard is getting too big for his boots. He proposed that increasing the quangocracy, which is what the Welsh Assembly has become, would not benefit the people of Wales. As the hon. Member for Hornchurch (John Cryer) so wisely pointed out, the imposition of STV—the single transferable vote—would make that Assembly even less democratic.
I was most interested in the remarks of the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst), who perhaps represents the municipal arm of old Labour. He rather reminded me of a smoother version of the "Peter Simple" character—the craggy-visaged, iron-watch-chained chairman of the Bradford tramways and fine arts committee. Nevertheless, he made the extremely important point that the transformation—or modernisation, as I suppose we must call it—of local government has in practical terms diminished the direct accountability of local authorities to their electorate. I also support his calling into question of the role of cabinets and elected mayors.
I support the speeches made by the countryside element among my hon. Friends. I speak for the suburbs, but my hon. Friends the Members for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) speak for the countryside—Yorkshire and the west country, respectively. They made important points, especially about the malign effect of the common agricultural policy on our countryside. I know the uplands of the north of England well, because I lived in the north Pennines for 17 years. The reduction of support prices for sheep and cattle production would be absolutely disastrous. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton, who is always a lady of conscience and sensibility, was right to explain to us how awful the countryside of Dartmoor, Exmoor and the New Forest would be without ponies if they were all shipped off live for slaughter on the continent. We must address those problems.
I want to talk about a smaller matter. It is a specific transport link that is at the other end of the problem described by the hon. Member for Hornchurch. He talked about the docklands light railway, and I want to talk about the Croxley link. I do not know whether you know much about the Croxley link, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I assure you that I shall try, in an exceedingly short time, to describe its merits. There is a little, disused branch line that goes through Croxley green from Watford. Everybody knows about the Metropolitan line because they read John Betjeman, and they know how lovely the places that lie along the line are—especially my constituency. If the branch line were restored to service, Metropolitan line tube trains could go along the Croxley link—through the centre of Watford—to Watford junction main railway station, which gives people the opportunity to take trains to Birmingham, the north-west and beyond.
At little cost, such a measure would have an immensely beneficial effect on an important industrial area. The hon. Member for Hornchurch said that the Thames gateway was an important economic area, and for me and my constituents, such an area is the north-west corridor. We were promised Crossrail down the north-west corridor from Aylesbury to Amersham—through my constituency—and I fought hard for a Crossrail stop in Northwood so that people could link up to Paddington, the City, Stratford and beyond. We will now be lucky to get Crossrail running even from Heathrow—through the centre of London—to the east of the capital, so it is almost impossible to imagine Crossrail going down the north-west corridor. If the Croxley link were built, it would at least be a substitute, at modest cost, for some of the potential that Crossrail could have offered.
My constituents have to struggle through traffic to get to Watford general hospital, and to Watford—for shopping—or the main line station. Such a journey is exceedingly difficult without the link. The Metropolitan line ends at Watford tube station, which is 2.5 miles from Watford's main line station. I see that the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), is taking notes; as a Hertfordshire Member, he understands the problem well. The process represents a good Conservative principle, because public services would be greatly enhanced at only modest cost. My constituents would benefit, Watford would benefit, and so would the country.
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